198 Life and Lttters of Francis Gulton 



The following letter to his sister, Miss Emma Galton, is not only of his- 

 torical interest, but jxjrtrays the intensti reverence Galton felt for his cousin: 



42, Rutland Gatk, April 22/82. 



DiAUR BmmA, I feel at tiineM quite sickened at the Iohh of Charles Darwin. I owod more 

 to him than to any man living or dead ; and I never entered his pi-esence without feeling a.s a 

 man in the presence of a l>elove<l sovereign. He was tio wholly free of petty faults, bo royally 

 aunded, ao helpful and sympathetic. It is a rare privilege to have known such a man, who 

 ■tuids head and slioulderM al)ove his contemporaries in the science of observation. When the 

 news came on Thursday I went to the }ioyal Society which met that day and arrangixl that 

 a request should l)e telegraphe<i to the family by the President in the name of the lloyal 

 Society asking if they woidd consent to. an interment in Westminster Abbey, to which I have 

 some reason to lielieve the Dean (who is abroad) would in no way object. If so the funeral 

 would l)e attended by deputations from all the learned societies. I wrote to Lord Abenleen, 

 who fully consents on behalf of the Geographical, and who has written accordingly. I was 

 absolutely engaged all yesterday (till after dinner hour even), and could not learn progress. 

 I hope the first wishes of the family may yield and that Charles Darwin may be laid by the 

 side of Newton as the two greatest Englishmen of Science. I had a britif letter from Frank 

 Darwin on Thursday with nothing however in it that was not in the next day newspapci's. It 

 was evidently angina. The world seems so blank to me now Charles Darwin is gone. I 

 reverenced and loved him thoroughly. Ever attectionately, Fuancis Oalton. 



On Aj)ril 'Jfith Darwin was buried in Westminster Abbey'; the funeral 

 cai-(l runs, "Wednesday April 26tii 188'J, at 12 o'clock precisely. Admit 

 the Bearer at eleven o'clock to the Jerusalem Chamber." Galton walked 

 in the procession', and on the same evening wrote to his sister, Miss Enuna 

 Oialfuii. .•^.'^ follows: 



42, HuTLANi) Gatk, Ajn-il 2C/82. 



Dkarbst Emma, The great ceremony in the Abbey is over. The whole "family" of 

 scientific men were there, a groat and imposing gathering. No ostentation but great from its 

 iatrinsic worth. The Duke of Argj-ll and Wallace were the two end pall-bearers, Huxley and 

 Canon Farrar were together, thus all shades of opinion and st-ation were mergfxl. It was 

 touching to see the blind Postmaster-General I Fawcett] led past the eottin. Several past Cabinet 

 Ministers were also present. They had asken me to find out Canon Farrar's views, wishing to 

 have some prominent ecclesiastic, esj)ecially one connected with Westminster Abbey, as a 



' It is noteworthy, perhaps, that Galton on Dec. 27, 1881 had sent a note to the Pail Mall 

 Gazette urging the stringent enforcement of rigid sanitary conditions of burial in the case of 

 interments in the Ablx'y. 



- Galton was also at Lord Tennyson's funeral and the-se ceremonies in the Abbey impressed 

 him with the existence of a greiit failure on such occasions. The solemn procession up the nave 

 to the chancel was not visible to the bulk of the congregation in the transepts. Galton in a 

 letter to The Timeg May '2Ti, 1808 writes: "My own seat was in a gootl position, but I saw 

 nothing of the distinguished persons who formed the pnK-ession except the fon-heads of two of 

 the [»all-lH9irer8 who were of exceptional stature, whose well-known names I need not specify. 

 All the others were sunk wholly out of sight in a trough of crowde<l humanity. It is a sad 

 waste of effort and op|>ortunity to so mal-organi.se a greM spectacle that its most imposing 

 feature prfjves to be invisible to the great majority of those who come to see it." Gallon's 

 solution was a slightlv raiBe<i causeway from choir to chancel. It may Ije objected that we go 

 to honour the dead and not to see a spectacle. But this is not wholly true; it is the spectacle 

 which impresses itself on the multitude and makes them realise, perhaps for the first time, the 

 national value of the great dead. They go to hear and they go to see that their memories and 

 their imaginations may lie indelibly impressed. A solemn national funeral repercusses in wider 

 circles than are ever reached by the acts or words of a national hero during life. It sets even 

 the inert inquiring. 



